Speech recognition apparatus and speech recognition method

ABSTRACT

A distance calculation unit ( 16 ) obtains the acoustic distance between the feature amount of input speech and each phonetic model. A word search unit ( 17 ) performs a word search based on the acoustic distance and a language model including the phoneme and prosodic label of a word, and outputs a word hypothesis and a first score representing the likelihood of the word hypothesis. The word search unit ( 17 ) also outputs a vowel interval and its tone label in the input speech, when assuming that the recognition result of the input speech is the word hypothesis. A tone recognition unit ( 21 ) outputs a second score representing the likelihood of the tone label output from the word search unit ( 17 ) based on a feature amount corresponding to the vowel interval output from the word search unit ( 17 ). A rescore unit ( 22 ) corrects the first score of the word hypothesis output from the word search unit ( 17 ) using the second score output from the tone recognition unit ( 21 ). This allows to raise the speech recognition accuracy for tone speech.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a speech recognition technique and,more particularly, to a speech recognition technique for a languageusing prosody such as tones (voice tones).

BACKGROUND ART

There are various languages using prosody. For example, Chinese usesprosody called tones. Tones are sound pitch patterns used to distinguishbetween meanings, and mainly, vowels have unique tones such as risingand falling tones. It is therefore important to recognize the tones forrecognition of Chinese speech.

A technique disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3162994 (reference 1) isknown as a speech recognition technique using tones. The Chinese speechrecognition technique described in reference 1 divides a syllable into afirst half portion and a second half portion, associates only the secondhalf portion of the syllable with a tone, and recognizes speech usingthe associated tone. Since speech recognition is executed using tones,this technique can make the voice tone speech recognition accuracyhigher than in a technique without using tones.

DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION Problem to be Solved by the Invention

However, the technique of reference 1 simply divides a syllable into afirst half portion and a second half portion, and the second halfportion can include a consonant. Hence, tone recognition may be doneeven for a consonant having no voice tone. In this case, the tonerecognition result may be inaccurate, and the speech recognitionaccuracy may lower.

An exemplary object of the invention is to improve the speechrecognition accuracy for a language having prosody such as tones.

Means of Solution to the Problem

A speech recognition apparatus according to an exemplary aspect of theinvention includes word search means for performing a word search basedon an acoustic distance between a phonetic model and a feature amount ofinput speech and a phoneme of a word in a language model including thephoneme and a prosodic label of the word, outputting a word hypothesisand a first score representing likelihood of the word hypothesis as aword search result, and when assuming that a recognition result of theinput speech is the word hypothesis, outputting a prosodic interval anda prosodic label of the prosodic interval in the input speech, prosodicrecognition means for outputting a second score representing likelihoodof the prosodic label output from the word search means, based on one offeature amounts of the input speech corresponding to the prosodicinterval output from the word search means, and rescore means forcorrecting the first score of the word hypothesis output from the wordsearch means using the second score output from the prosodic recognitionmeans.

A speech recognition method according to another exemplary aspect of theinvention includes the steps of performing a word search based on anacoustic distance between a phonetic model and a feature amount of inputspeech and a phoneme of a word in a language model including the phonemeand a prosodic label of the word, outputting a word hypothesis and afirst score representing likelihood of the word hypothesis as a wordsearch result, and when assuming that a recognition result of the inputspeech is the word hypothesis, outputting a prosodic interval and aprosodic label of the prosodic interval in the input speech, outputtinga second score representing likelihood of the output prosodic labelbased on one of feature amounts of the input speech corresponding to theoutput prosodic interval, and correcting the output first score of theword hypothesis using the output second score.

EFFECT OF THE INVENTION

According to the present invention, it is possible to raise the speechrecognition accuracy for a language having prosody such as tones.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of the overall arrangementof a speech recognition apparatus according to the first exemplaryembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an example of an operation accordingto the first exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an example of the first exemplaryembodiment;

FIGS. 4A and 4B are views showing examples of words;

FIG. 5 is a view showing an example of the contents of a worddictionary;

FIG. 6 is a view for explaining the operation of the example of thefirst exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 7 is a graph for explaining a tone modeling method;

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of a speech recognition apparatus according tothe second exemplary embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing an example of the overall arrangementof an example of the second exemplary embodiment;

FIGS. 10A and 10B are views showing examples of continuous words;

FIG. 11 is a view for explaining the operation of the example of thesecond exemplary embodiment; and

FIG. 12 is a block diagram of a speech recognition apparatus accordingto the third exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

The exemplary embodiments of the present invention will now be describedin detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

First Exemplary Embodiment of Present Invention

A speech recognition apparatus according to the first exemplaryembodiment of the present invention will be described.

Explanation of Arrangement of First Exemplary Embodiment of PresentInvention

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of the overall arrangementof the speech recognition apparatus according to the first exemplaryembodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, a speech recognition apparatus 1 includes threekinds of model storage units, i.e., a phonetic model storage unit 11which registers phonetic models formed by modeling phonemes, a languagemodel storage unit 12 which registers language models including thephonemes and tone labels of words, and a tone model storage unit 13which registers tone models formed by modeling the acoustic features oftones.

The speech recognition apparatus 1 also includes an input unit 14,acoustic analysis unit 15, distance calculation unit 16, word searchunit 17, tone recognition unit 21 serving as a prosodic recognitionmeans, rescore unit 22, and output unit 23.

The input unit 14 has a function of inputting speech. The acousticanalysis unit 15 has a function of acoustically analyzing the speechinput from the input unit 14 and outputting the feature amount of theinput speech. The distance calculation unit 16 has a function ofcalculating the acoustic distance between the feature amount that is theacoustic analysis result and each phonetic model registered in thephonetic model storage unit 11.

The word search unit 17 has a function of executing a word search basedon the acoustic distances obtained by the distance calculation unit 16and the language models registered in the language model storage unit12, and outputting, to the rescore unit 22, a word search resultincluding a plurality of word hypotheses (recognition result candidates)and first scores representing the likelihoods of the word hypotheses.The word search unit 17 of this exemplary embodiment also has a functionof, when assuming that each of the plurality of word hypotheses be therecognition result of the input speech, outputting vowel intervals andtheir tone labels in the input speech.

To implement this function, the word search unit 17 includes a wordhypothesis identification unit 18, phonetic hypothesis identificationunit 19, and vowel interval identification unit 20. The word hypothesisidentification unit 18 identifies each word hypothesis obtained by theword search. The phonetic hypothesis identification unit 19 identifiesphonemes in each word hypothesis. The vowel interval identification unit20 identifies, for each word hypothesis, vowel intervals in the inputspeech based on the identified phonemes and the correspondence relationbetween the input speech and the phonemes used for the word search, andoutputs pairs of identified vowel intervals and their tone labels to thetone recognition unit 21.

The tone recognition unit 21 has a function of obtaining, for each wordhypothesis, second scores each representing the likelihood of a tonelabel for the word hypothesis based on the feature amount correspondingto a vowel interval output from the word search unit 17 and the tonemodels registered in the tone model storage unit 13, and outputting thesecond scores to the rescore unit 22.

The rescore unit 22 has a function of correcting the first score of eachword hypothesis output from the word search unit 17 using thecorresponding second scores of the word hypothesis output from the tonerecognition unit 21. The output unit 23 has a function of selectivelyoutputting, based on the corrected first scores, a recognition resultfrom the plurality of word hypotheses obtained by the word search.

Note that the speech recognition apparatus 1 can be implemented by acomputer in, e.g., the following way. A disk, semiconductor memory, orany other recording medium recording a program that causes a computer tofunction as the speech recognition apparatus 1 is prepared, and thecomputer reads out the program. The computer controls its operationbased on the readout program, thereby implementing the acoustic analysisunit 15, distance calculation unit 16, word search unit 17, tonerecognition unit 21, rescore unit 22, and output unit 23 on thecomputer.

Explanation of Operation of First Exemplary Embodiment of PresentInvention

The operation of this exemplary embodiment will be described next indetail with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.

Upon receiving speech uttered by the user from the input unit 14 (stepS100 in FIG. 2), the acoustic analysis unit 15 acoustically analyzes theinput speech to obtain the feature amount of the speech (step S101).After that, the distance calculation unit 16 calculates the acousticdistance between the feature amount obtained in step S101 and eachphonetic model registered in the phonetic model storage unit 11 (theacoustic distance represents the acoustic likelihood of each phoneme)(step S102).

After the distance calculation unit 16 has calculated the acousticdistance between the feature amount and each phonetic model, the wordsearch unit 17 executes a word search based on the acoustic distancesand the language models registered in the language model storage unit12, and outputs, to the rescore unit 22, a word search result includinga plurality of word hypotheses and first scores representing thelikelihoods of the word hypotheses (step S103).

Next, the word hypothesis identification unit 18 in the word search unit17 identifies the word hypotheses obtained by the search in step S103(step S104). The phonetic hypothesis identification unit 19 thenidentifies, based on the language models, phonemes in each wordhypothesis identified in step S104 (step S105). Then, the vowel intervalidentification unit 20 identifies, for each word hypothesis identifiedin step S104, vowel intervals in the input speech based on the phonemesidentified in step S105 and the correspondence relation between theinput speech and the phonemes used for the word search in step S103, andoutputs pairs of identified vowel intervals and their tone labels to thetone recognition unit 21 (step S106).

For each pair of a vowel interval and its tone label output from theword search unit 17, the tone recognition unit 21 performs tonerecognition based on the feature amount corresponding to the vowelinterval and the tone models registered in the tone model storage unit13, and outputs a second score representing the likelihood of the tonelabel to the rescore unit 22 (step S107).

The rescore unit 22 corrects the first score of each word hypothesisusing the corresponding second scores of the word hypothesis output fromthe tone recognition unit 21 (step S108). The output unit 23 decides arecognition result from the plurality of word hypotheses based on thecorrected first scores and outputs the recognition result (step S109).

Effect of First Exemplary Embodiment of Present Invention

According to this exemplary embodiment, it is possible to accuratelyrecognize voice tone speech. This is because the tone recognition targetinterval is limited to a vowel interval obtained based on word searchinformation that can optimally combine acoustic information (featureamount) and language information. That is, as compared to a technique ofsimply obtaining a tone recognition target interval (vowel interval)based on acoustic information, the risk of erroneously defining aninterval other than a vowel interval as a tone recognition intervallessens. Since it is possible to suppress tone recognition errors, therecognition accuracy can be made higher.

Example of First Exemplary Embodiment

An example of the first exemplary embodiment will be described next.

Explanation of Arrangement of Example of First Exemplary Embodiment

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an example of the overall arrangementof a speech recognition apparatus 10 according to this example.

The speech recognition apparatus 10 of this example includes threestorage units, i.e., an HMM (Hidden Markov Model) storage unit 110 whichregisters HMMs serving as phonetic models, a word dictionary storageunit 120 which registers a word dictionary having the phonemes and tonelabels of words to be recognized, and a four-tone model storage unit 130which registers, as tone models, four-tone models formed by modeling theacoustic features of four tones by, e.g., GMMs (Gaussian MixtureModels). The storage units 110, 120, and 130 correspond to the phoneticmodel storage unit 11, language model storage unit 12, and tone modelstorage unit 13 shown in FIG. 1, respectively.

The speech recognition apparatus 10 also includes an input unit 140,acoustic analysis unit 150, distance calculation unit 160, word searchunit 170 having a word hypothesis identification unit 180, phonetichypothesis identification unit 190, and vowel interval identificationunit 200, four-tone recognition unit 210, rescore unit 220, and outputunit 230. The functional units 140, 150, 160, 170, 210, 220, and 230correspond to the input unit 14, acoustic analysis unit 15, distancecalculation unit 16, word search unit 17, tone recognition unit 21,rescore unit 22, and output unit 23 shown in FIG. 1, respectively, andhave the same functions.

Note that the speech recognition apparatus 10 of this example can alsobe implemented by a computer, like the speech recognition apparatus 1 ofthe first exemplary embodiment.

Explanation of Operation of Example of First Exemplary Embodiment

The operation of this example will be described next in detail.

Assume that, for example, the user utters a word shown in FIG. 4A. Notethat the word shown in FIG. 4A will be referred to as a word A, and theword shown in FIG. 4B will be referred to as a word B in the followingdescription. The word dictionary registered in the word dictionarystorage unit 120 registers words such as the words A and B at a phoneticlevel together with tone labels such as “3 (third tone)” of “i3” and “2(second tone)” of “in2”, as shown in FIG. 5.

The acoustic analysis unit 150 acoustically analyzes the speech inputfrom the input unit 140, and obtains, for example, the cepstrum andpitch per unit time (frame) as the feature amount.

The distance calculation unit 160 calculates, for each frame, thedistance between the cepstrum obtained by the acoustic analysis unit 150and each HMM registered in the HMM storage unit 110, and outputs theacoustic distance (a score representing likelihood) between each phonemeand the cepstrum in each frame as a distance calculation result.

When the distance calculation unit 160 has output the distancecalculation result, the word search unit 170 executes the followingprocessing sequentially for the words in the word dictionary. Based onthe phonemes included in the process target word and the distancecalculation result received from the distance calculation unit 160, theword search unit 170 obtains, for each phoneme, a frame corresponding tothe phoneme and an acoustic distance (score) representing acousticlikelihood. For example, when the process target is the word A shown inFIG. 4A, phonemes “n i3 h ao3” are included in the word A, as shown inFIG. 5. Hence, the scores of phonetic models “n”, “i”, “h”, and “ao”chained from the top of the distance calculation result are calculatedin the order of frames, thereby obtaining information such as {thephonetic model “n” has a score “0.7” in frames “5 to 11”, the phoneticmodel “i” has a score “0.8” in frames “12 to 19”, . . . } or {thephonetic model “n” has a score “0.5” in frames “4 to 9”, the phoneticmodel “i” has a score “0.6” in frames “10 to 17”, . . . }. After that,the score of the information (for example, the sum of the scores of thephonetic models) is obtained. The highest score is determined as thescore of the process target word, and the information having the highestscore is stored in a frame information storage unit (not shown) as theinformation used to execute the word search.

The word search unit 170 performs the above-described processing for allwords registered in the word dictionary, and decides words serving asword hypotheses (recognition result candidates) based on the scores ofthe words. For example, a predetermined number of words are selected indescending order of scores, and the selected words are defined as wordhypotheses.

Assume that with the above-described word search processing, the word Ahaving a score “3.2” and the word B having a score “3.5” are obtained asrecognition result candidates, as shown in FIG. 6.

When the word search processing has ended, the word hypothesisidentification unit 180 in the word search unit 170 first identifieswords to obtain the words A and B. Next, the phonetic hypothesisidentification unit 190 identifies phonemes using the word dictionary soas to obtain “n in2 h ao3” from the word A and “n i3 h ao3” from theword B together with tone labels. After that, the vowel intervalidentification unit 200 identifies the vowel intervals of the words Aand B based on the phonetic identification result and the informationregistered in the frame information storage unit.

As a consequence, vowel intervals corresponding to the vowel portions“in2” and “ao3” of the word A and those corresponding to the vowelportions “i3” and “ao3” of the word B are obtained as time (frame)information, as shown in FIG. 6.

The vowel interval identification unit 200 then transfers the vowelintervals of the words A and B and their tone labels to the four-tonerecognition unit 210. The four-tone recognition unit 210 executes thefollowing processing sequentially for the vowel intervals of the words.For one of the pitches as the analysis result of the acoustic analysisunit 150, which corresponds to a process target vowel interval, thefour-tone recognition unit 210 executes four-tone recognition usingfour-tone models registered in the four-tone model storage unit 130,thereby calculating a score St representing the likelihood of the tonelabel of the vowel interval. For example, when the process target is thevowel interval “frames 12 to 19” of the vowel “i3” of the word B, apitch corresponding to “frames 12 to 19” undergoes four-tone recognitionusing the four-tone models so as to calculate a score representing thelikelihood of the vowel “i3”. In the example of FIG. 6, the scorerepresenting the likelihood, as the third tone, of the vowel intervalcorresponding to the vowel “i3” of the word B is “0.3”.

When a GMM is used as a model, as in this example, the score St of thefour-tone recognition result can be calculated, using an N-dimensionalfeature vector x=(x1, x2, . . . , xN) as the input and M as the numberof mixed GMMs, by

$\begin{matrix}{\mspace{79mu} {{{St} = {\overset{M}{\sum\limits_{i}}{w_{i}P_{i}\; (x)}}}\mspace{20mu} \left( {{\sum\limits_{i}^{M}w_{i}} = 1} \right){{P_{i}(x)} = {\frac{1}{\left( {2\pi} \right)^{N/2}{\Sigma_{i}}^{1/2}}\exp \left\{ {{- \frac{1}{2}}\left( {x - \mu} \right){\sum\limits_{i}^{- 1}\left( {x - \mu} \right)}} \right\}}}}} & \left\lbrack {{Mathematical}\mspace{14mu} 1} \right\rbrack\end{matrix}$

where μ is the average vector of the four-tone models, Σi is thecovariance matrix, and w is the weight. As the GMMs, four modelsrepresenting the first to fourth tones are prepared here. For example,if the tone label of the recognition target indicates the third tone, ascore is calculated using the GMM representing the third tone.Similarly, assume that a score “0.8” is obtained for the vowel “in2”,and a score “0.9” is obtained for the vowel “ao3” in both wordhypotheses. Using the four-tone recognition result, the rescore unit 220rescores the word hypotheses as the word search result. Letting Sw bethe score of an original word hypothesis, and St1, St2, . . . be thescores of the four-tone recognition results of vowels that exist in aword. A score S after all word hypotheses have been rescored is given by

$\begin{matrix}{S = {{Sw} + {\sum\limits_{n}{Stn}}}} & \left\lbrack {{Mathematical}\mspace{14mu} 2} \right\rbrack\end{matrix}$

At this time, the score St of the four-tone recognition result may benormalized by the number of vowels or the number of frames. As theresult of rescore, the score of the word A is “4.9”, and the score ofthe word B is “4.7”. That is, the ranks are reversed. The output unit230 outputs the word A as the most likely recognition result.

To implement rescore, a method of performing the word search whilecorrecting the score of a word hypothesis under processing or a methodof correcting the score of each word hypothesis included in N-bestcandidates or word graphs corresponding to an intermediate result afterthe end of word search processing for one utterance is available. In theformer method, since all word hypotheses are processed, the processingamount increases, but the accuracy can be expected to be higher. In thelatter method, since the intermediate result generally includes onlygenerated word hypotheses having high scores, the processing amount canbe small, but the accuracy cannot improve sufficiently.

As the tone modeling method using GMMs, for example, as shown in FIG. 7,the pitch information of a target vowel interval is normalized in thetime direction and frequency direction and N point of the contour aresampled to form an N-dimensional feature vector, and learning isperformed, thereby modeling tones. At this time, Ft{tilde over ( )}obtained by normalizing a frequency Ft at a time t is given by, e.g.,

$\begin{matrix}{{\overset{\sim}{F}}_{t} = \frac{{Ft} - {F\; \min}}{{F\; \max} - {F\; \min}}} & \left\lbrack {{Mathematical}\mspace{14mu} 3} \right\rbrack\end{matrix}$

where Fmax and Fmin are the maximum and minimum values of the frequencyin the target interval.

Ft{tilde over ( )} is further normalized at N points in the timedirection.

This arrangement enables to independently learn the HMMs to beregistered in the HMM storage unit 110 and the four-tone models to beregistered in the four-tone model storage unit 130. For example, an HMMrepresenting “i” can be learned as one model “i” independently of itsfour tones such as “i2” or “i3”. Conversely, a four-tone modelrepresenting the third tone can be learned as one model “third tone”independently of its phoneme such as “i3” or “ao3”. This is because thecontour of each tone exhibits almost the same shape independently of thetype of the phoneme. That is, according to this example, it is possibleto obtain HMMs and four-tone models which enable accurate speechrecognition with a little learning amount.

In this example, an example of recognition of one word has beendescribed. However, it is also possible to recognize, by the samemethod, continuous speech that contains a plurality of words in oneutterance. Even in this case, rescore is performed for each wordhypothesis, and the sum of all scores is calculated.

In this example, four tones are modeled by GMMs. Instead, for example,an SVM may be used. In this case, since the SVM is a binarydiscriminator, discrimination is performed by preparing discriminationmodels for all combinations such as the discrimination model of thefirst and second tones and the discrimination model of the first andthird tones. As a result, whether the most likely one of the four tones,i.e., a tone corresponding to the largest sum of discrimination resultsis the same as the tone label corresponding to an identified phoneme isoutput as a score and rescored. For example, when the tone labelindicates the second tone, and one of the four tones corresponding tothe largest sum of discrimination results is the second tone, a score“1.0” is output. Instead, if the tone is the first tone, a score “0” isoutput.

Second Exemplary Embodiment of Present Invention

A speech recognition apparatus according to the second exemplaryembodiment of the present invention will be described next. Thisexemplary embodiment is characterized by performing tone recognitionusing not only tone models but also context models created by modelingcontext information serving as tone history information.

Explanation of Arrangement of Second Exemplary Embodiment of PresentInvention

FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing an example of the overall arrangementof the speech recognition apparatus according to this exemplaryembodiment. Unlike the speech recognition apparatus 1 shown in FIG. 1, aspeech recognition apparatus 1 a shown in FIG. 8 additionally includes acontext model storage unit 31, and also includes a tone recognition unit21 a in place of the tone recognition unit 21.

The context model storage unit 31 registers context models formed bymodeling context information serving as tone history information.

The tone recognition unit 21 a has a function of obtaining, for eachword hypothesis, second scores each representing the likelihood of atone label for the word hypothesis based on a feature amountcorresponding to a vowel interval output from a vowel intervalidentification unit 20 in a word search unit 17, tone models registeredin a tone model storage unit 13, and the context models registered inthe context model storage unit 31, and outputting the second scores to arescore unit 22.

Note that the speech recognition apparatus 1 a of this exemplaryembodiment can also be implemented by a computer, like the speechrecognition apparatus 1.

Explanation of Operation of Second Exemplary Embodiment of PresentInvention

The operation of this exemplary embodiment will be described next. Notethat the operational difference from the above-described first exemplaryembodiment is only the operation of the tone recognition unit 21 a, andonly the operation of the tone recognition unit 21 a will be explainedhere.

The tone recognition unit 21 a performs the following processing foreach pair of a vowel interval and its tone label output from the wordsearch unit 17. The tone recognition unit 21 a executes tone recognitionbased on a feature amount corresponding to the vowel interval, the tonemodels registered in the tone model storage unit 13, and the contextmodels registered in the context model storage unit 31, and outputs, tothe rescore unit 22, second scores each representing the likelihood of atone label.

Effect of Second Exemplary Embodiment

In this exemplary embodiment, tone recognition is performed using notonly the tone models but also the context models. This allows to raisethe tone recognition accuracy.

Example of Second Exemplary Embodiment

An example of the second exemplary embodiment will be described next.

Explanation of Arrangement of Example of Second Exemplary Embodiment

FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing an example of the overall arrangementof a speech recognition apparatus 10 a according to this example. Unlikethe example of the first exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 3, thespeech recognition apparatus 10 a additionally includes a four-tonebigram model storage unit 310 which registers four-tone bigram models,and also includes a four-tone recognition unit 210 a in place of thefour-tone recognition unit 210. Note that the four-tone bigram modelstorage unit 310 and the four-tone recognition unit 210 a correspond tothe context model storage unit 31 and the tone recognition unit 21 ashown in FIG. 8, respectively.

The four-tone bigram model storage unit 310 registers, as contextmodels, four-tone bigram models created by modeling the chainprobabilities of the four tones.

The four-tone recognition unit 210 a has a function of obtaining, foreach word hypothesis, second scores each representing the likelihood ofa tone label for the word hypothesis based on a feature amountcorresponding to a vowel interval output from a vowel intervalidentification unit 200 in a word search unit 170, four-tone modelsregistered in a four-tone model storage unit 130, and the four-tonebigram models registered in the four-tone bigram model storage unit 310,and outputting the second scores to a rescore unit 220.

Note that the speech recognition apparatus 10 a of this example can alsobe implemented by a computer, like the speech recognition apparatus 1 a.

Explanation of Operation of Example of Second Exemplary Embodiment

The operation of this example will be described next. Assume that, forexample, the user utters a continuous word shown in FIG. 10A for aninput unit 140. Note that the continuous word shown in FIG. 10A will bereferred to as a continuous word A, and the continuous word shown inFIG. 10B will be referred to as a continuous word B in the followingdescription.

An acoustic analysis unit 150, distance calculation unit 160, and wordsearch unit 170 perform the same processes as described above. Assumethat the continuous words A and B are thus obtained as word hypotheses(recognition result candidates), as shown in FIG. 11. In the example ofFIG. 11, the scores of the continuous words A and B are “24.8” and“25.0”, respectively. That is, the likelihood of the continuous word Bis higher at this point of time.

A word hypothesis identification unit 180, phonetic hypothesisidentification unit 190, and vowel interval identification unit 200 inthe word search unit 170 also perform the same processes as described.The vowel intervals of the continuous words A and B and their tonelabels are output to the four-tone recognition unit 210 a. Morespecifically, for the continuous word A including phonemes “q ue4 r en4m ei2 w en4 t i2”, vowel intervals (frame information) of vowels “ue4”,“en4”, “ei2”, “en4”, and “i2” and their tone labels are output. For thecontinuous word B including phonemes “q ue4 r en4 m ei2 y ou3 w en4 t i2vowel intervals (frame information) of vowels “ue4”, “en4”, “ei2”,“ou3”, “en4”, and “i2” and their tone labels are output.

The four-tone recognition unit 210 a executes four-tone recognition forthe vowel intervals of the continuous words A and B received from theword search unit 170 using the four-tone models and the four-tone bigrammodels.

Assume that by applying the pitch contours and four-tone chainprobabilities of the target vowel intervals, for, e.g., an interval “mei2 y ou3 w en4”, scores based on the pitches of “ei2”, “ou3”, and “en4”are obtained as “0.5”, “0.3”, and “0.6”, and scores based on the chainprobabilities are obtained as “0.4”, “0.2”, and “0.3”, respectively. Asfor the chain probability using the four-tone bigram models, theprobability of a tone T, of the target vowel is calculated, using a toneof the immediately preceding vowel, by

P(T _(i))=P(T _(i) |T _(i−1))

Since, for example, the immediately preceding vowel of “ei2” is “en4”having the fourth tone, “0.4” is obtained as the chain probability ofthe second tone and the fourth tone. Similarly assume that for aninterval “m ei2 w en4”, scores based on the pitches of “ei2” and “en4”are obtained as “0.7” and “0.8”, and scores based on the chainprobabilities are obtained as “0.4” and “0.7”, respectively. In thiscase, as the results of rescore of all intervals by the rescore unit220, for example, “32.4” is obtained as the score of the continuous wordA, and “32.3” is obtained as the score of the continuous word B. Anoutput unit 230 outputs, e.g., the continuous word A as the most likelyresult.

In this way, not only the pitch information of each vowel interval butalso the chain probability representing the connectability of four tonesis used, thereby raising the four-tone recognition accuracy.

In this example, a score obtained from a tone model and a score obtainedfrom a context model are simply added for rescore. However, the scoresmay be normalized by the number of syllables or the number of frames.For example, a weighted sum may be calculated. The normalization makesit possible to suppress variations in scores caused by the difference inthe number of syllables included in the word hypotheses upon recognizingcontinuous speech and further raise the recognition accuracy.

Note that in each exemplary embodiment, tones have been exemplified.However, any prosody other than tones is usable if it allows adescription on a dictionary and identification of intervals. For, e.g.,English accents, the accent type of each word is described in adictionary. The time-rate change of the short-time speech power of eachaccent type is modeled as a feature amount, and an accent interval ineach word is identified as a recognition target interval.

Third Exemplary Embodiment of Present Invention

FIG. 12 is a block diagram showing an example of the overall arrangementof a speech recognition apparatus according to the third exemplaryembodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 12, a speechrecognition apparatus 1 b includes a word search unit 17 b, prosodicrecognition unit 21 b, and rescore unit 22 b.

The word search unit 17 b has a function of executing a word searchbased on the acoustic distance between each phonetic model and thefeature amount of input speech and the phonemes of words in languagemodels, and outputting, as a word search result, word hypotheses andfirst scores representing the likelihoods of the word hypotheses. Notethat the language models include the phonemes and prosodic labels ofwords. Also assuming that the recognition result of the input speech isa word hypothesis, the word search unit 17 b outputs prosodic intervalsand their prosodic labels in the input speech.

The prosodic recognition unit 21 b has a function of outputting secondscores each representing the likelihood of a prosodic label output fromthe word search unit 17 b, based on one of the input feature amountscorresponding to a prosodic interval output from the word search unit 17b. The rescore unit 22 b has a function of correcting the first score ofeach word hypothesis output from the word search unit 17 b using thesecond scores output from the prosodic recognition unit 21 b.

The speech recognition apparatus 1 b can also be regarded as anapparatus including the phonetic model storage unit 11, language modelstorage unit 12, tone model storage unit 13, input unit 14 acousticanalysis unit 15, distance calculation unit 16, and output unit 23 inFIG. 1, or an apparatus including the externally connected context modelstorage unit 31 in FIG. 8 in addition to these functional units.

In this exemplary embodiment as well, it is possible to accuratelyrecognize voice tone speech, as in the speech recognition apparatuses 1and 1 b shown in FIGS. 1 and 8.

Note that the speech recognition apparatus 1 b can be implemented by acomputer in, e.g., the following way. A disk, semiconductor memory, orany other mechanically readable recording medium 4 recording a program41 that causes a computer to function as the speech recognitionapparatus 1 b is prepared, and the computer reads out the program 41.The computer controls its operation based on the readout program 41,thereby implementing the word search unit 17 b, prosodic recognitionunit 21 b, and rescore unit 22 b.

The present invention has been described above with reference to theexemplary embodiments and examples, but is not limited to theabove-described exemplary embodiments and examples. The arrangement anddetails of the invention can be variously modified within the scope ofthe invention, and these modifications will readily occur to thoseskilled in the art.

This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority fromJapanese patent application No. 2007-215958, filed on Aug. 22, 2007, thedisclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

The present invention is applicable to a human interface using speechrecognition of a voice tone language such as Chinese.

1-30. (canceled)
 31. A speech recognition apparatus comprising: a wordsearch unit that performs a word search based on an acoustic distancebetween a phonetic model and a feature amount of input speech and aphoneme of a word in a language model including the phoneme and aprosodic label of the word, outputs a word hypothesis and a first scorerepresenting likelihood of the word hypothesis as a word search result,and when assuming that a recognition result of the input speech is theword hypothesis, outputs a prosodic interval and a prosodic label of theprosodic interval in the input speech; a prosodic recognition unit thatoutputs a second score representing likelihood of the prosodic labeloutput from said word search unit, based on one of feature amounts ofthe input speech corresponding to the prosodic interval output from saidword search unit; and a rescore unit that corrects the first score ofthe word hypothesis output from said word search unit using the secondscore output from said prosodic recognition unit, wherein the prosodiclabel is one of a tone label and an accent type, and the prosodicinterval is one of a vowel interval and an accent interval.
 32. A speechrecognition apparatus according to claim 31, wherein said rescore unitperforms one of correcting a score of a word hypothesis under processingin the word search and correcting a score of an intermediate resultobtained as a result of the word search.
 33. A speech recognitionapparatus according to claim 32, wherein the intermediate result is oneof an Nbest candidate and a word graph.
 34. A speech recognitionapparatus according to claim 31, wherein the prosodic label is the tonelabel, and the prosodic interval is the vowel interval.
 35. A speechrecognition apparatus according to claim 34, wherein said word searchunit comprises: a word hypothesis identification unit that identifies atleast one of a word and a continuous word; a phonetic hypothesisidentification unit that identifies a phoneme in at least one of theword and the continuous word using the language model; and a vowelinterval identification unit that identifies an interval of a vowel ofthe phonemes.
 36. A speech recognition apparatus according to claim 35,wherein said vowel interval identification unit identifies, as the vowelinterval, an interval from a start time to an end time of a hypothesisof the vowel in the word search.
 37. A speech recognition apparatusaccording to claim 34, wherein said prosodic recognition unit performsprosodic recognition using a tone model which is modeled using atime-rate change of a pitch in the vowel interval as a feature amount.38. A speech recognition apparatus according to claim 37, wherein thetone model is independent of the phonetic model used to calculate theacoustic distance.
 39. A speech recognition apparatus according to claim34, wherein said prosodic recognition unit performs prosodic recognitionusing a tone model which is modeled using a time-rate change of a pitchin the vowel interval as a feature amount and a context model created bymodeling context information serving as prosodic history information.40. A speech recognition apparatus according to claim 39, wherein thecontext model is created by modeling a chain probability of a tone of avowel.
 41. A speech recognition method comprising the steps of:performing a word search based on an acoustic distance between aphonetic model and a feature amount of input speech and a phoneme of aword in a language model including the phoneme and a prosodic label ofthe word, outputting a word hypothesis and a first score representinglikelihood of the word hypothesis as a word search result, and whenassuming that a recognition result of the input speech is the wordhypothesis, outputting a prosodic interval and a prosodic label of theprosodic interval in the input speech; outputting a second scorerepresenting likelihood of the output prosodic label based on one offeature amounts of the input speech corresponding to the output prosodicinterval; and correcting the output first score of the word hypothesisusing the output second score, wherein the prosodic label is one of atone label and an accent type, and the prosodic interval is one of avowel interval and an accent interval.
 42. A speech recognition methodaccording to claim 41, wherein the correcting step comprises one of thesteps of correcting a score of a word hypothesis under processing in theword search, and correcting a score of an intermediate result obtainedas a result of the word search.
 43. A speech recognition methodaccording to claim 42, wherein the intermediate result is one of anNbest candidate and a word graph.
 44. A speech recognition methodaccording to claim 41, wherein the prosodic label is the tone label, andthe prosodic interval is the vowel interval.
 45. A speech recognitionmethod according to claim 44, the step of performing the word searchcomprises the steps of: identifying at least one of a word and acontinuous word; identifying a phoneme in at least one of the word andthe continuous word using the language model; and identifying aninterval of a vowel of the phonemes.
 46. A speech recognition methodaccording to claim 45, wherein the step of identifying the intervalcomprises the step of identifying, as the vowel interval, an intervalfrom a start time to an end time of a hypothesis of the vowel in theword search.
 47. A speech recognition method according to claim 44,wherein the step of outputting the second score comprises the step ofperforming prosodic recognition using a tone model which is modeledusing a time-rate change of a pitch in the vowel interval as a featureamount.
 48. A speech recognition method according to claim 47, whereinthe tone model is independent of the phonetic model used to calculatethe acoustic distance.
 49. A speech recognition method according toclaim 44, wherein the step of outputting the second score comprises thestep of performing prosodic recognition using a tone model which ismodeled using a time-rate change of a pitch in the vowel interval as afeature amount and a context model created by modeling contextinformation serving as prosodic history information.
 50. A speechrecognition method according to claim 49, wherein the context model iscreated by modeling a chain probability of a tone of a vowel.